What We Were Thinking Of, 10

ACT II: “Secrets, David, they make you sick”

What We Were Thinking Of is available for full productions and readings. Interested parties may contact me through my Substack email address.

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⇐ Part 9, “Ghosts in every attic”

⇒ Part 11, “The risk, my brother — the risk is just a part of life”

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What We Were Thinking Of: Table of Contents

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♦︎ ♦︎ ♦︎

(Lights up slowly again on Bud and Frank, at night, sitting in the woods. Bud sees David.)

BUD

Where the fuck have you been? I said eight --

(David walks toward them.)

DAVID

I stopped in to check on Sara and Hannah. You couldn't have picked an easier place to meet? The "logs"? The fucking "logs"? Who the hell knows where that is?

BUD

That was the point. You found it didn't you.

DAVID

Barely. Why couldn't we have met at the office?

BUD

(dramatically)

Because the walls have ears.

(to Frank)

You think my father ever says that?

DAVID

So what's goin' on?

(Bud and Frank glance at each other.)

BUD

Well, since you were late, we did start without you. We were just fantasizing a little.

(beat)

We were imagining how great it would be if someone destroyed the research labs.

FRANK

Wouldn't that be a blow against the empire.

DAVID

It's a nice fantasy.

BUD

It doesn't have to be.

DAVID

A fantasy? What do you want to do, bomb it?

BUD

(to Frank)

Now that's a thought.

FRANK

We were thinking of burning it down.

DAVID

(beat, staring)

Are you for real?

BUD

Were you?

DAVID

That's very serious business you're talking about there, fellas.

BUD

So's the war. So's research that supports it.

(David turns and walks quickly away, stops. Bud and Frank follow.)

BUD

(continuing)

What's the matter?

DAVID

What's the matter? That's way beyond anything we've ever even thought of before.

BUD

I know. It would make us for real. Do you know what Frank found out today?

FRANK

The security in the labs is military.

BUD

This isn't defense "related" research. This is the war machine.

DAVID

What about the security? We wouldn't want to hurt anyone.

BUD

There's only one guard from midnight to six. We concoct a ruse to get him out.

DAVID

"Concoct a ruse"?

BUD

It can be done.

DAVID

You've looked into this already.

BUD

I've been thinking about it.

FRANK

It's a question of what we really stand for in the end, isn't it?

BUD

Look at it this way. If you woke up in the morning to discover that someone else had destroyed the labs, you would be happy, wouldn't you? You'd think it was a good thing. Would you think they had done something wrong?

(David walks quickly away again. Bud exchanges glances with Frank, gestures for him to stay. Bud runs after David, pulls his arm and stops him.)

BUD

(continuing)

This is the moment of truth, Richie Rich. This is when we put up.

DAVID

And kill someone?

BUD

We're not going to kill anyone.

DAVID

No? Because you've "concocted a ruse"? Let me hear it.

BUD

I'll come up with something.

DAVID

Bullshit.

BUD

Hey, what the hell have you been doing the last four years, anyway, playing a game? A few little middle class acts of adolescent rebellion against the powers that be before you punch your ticket and get in line? You heard what Frank said. The army's in that building. On this campus. This campus is part of a war effort you say you're opposed to. Your tuition is supporting it. So now it's crunch time, Rich. What are you going to do? Are you going to put your life on the line and act like a true revolutionary -- or when it's all over, and the dead are dead and the end is what it is, will you content your conscience with the thought that you asked them not to do it, but they just wouldn't listen?

“Look what's happening out in the streets / Got a revolution (got to revolution)”

DAVID

(beat)

I won't kill anyone.

(Lights out on all but David, alone in the darkness.)

DAVID

(continuing)

I won't kill anyone!

(Lights up on the backyard of David's parents, Beatrice and Harold Rich. Beatrice prunes branches in her garden, near a table, on which are a plate of cookies and a pitcher of milk.)

BEATRICE

Actually, you surprised me. You don't usually come home to share your problems with me. You're a lot like your father that way.

(David looks around, a little mystified. He walks to the table, picks up a cookie. He stares, bites into it.)

DAVID

What?

BEATRICE

You're a lot like your father that way.

DAVID

Hardly.

BEATRICE

More than you know, my son. How are the cookies? You like?

DAVID

The best.

BEATRICE

So what are you going to do?

DAVID

I haven't decided.

BEATRICE

Why not just tell them the truth?

DAVID

The truth is complicated, Mom.

BEATRICE

It always is.

DAVID

And do you realize how few people know what I did? You and Dad --

BEATRICE

Renata.

DAVID

Charles never told her.

BEATRICE

He didn't tell her?

DAVID

Charles doesn't tell anyone anything. That was his business.

BEATRICE

You think.

DAVID

I know.

BEATRICE

You told Sara?

DAVID

Of course, I did. You know that.

BEATRICE

Shoin fergessen. I'm getting old. And Hannah?

(David shakes his head)

Not even when you fought?

DAVID

It would have felt like I was giving him up again -- just to smooth things over with my daughter. Besides, I didn't want to have to explain that for her to know who I am.

BEATRICE

More like your father than you know.

(Beatrice sits slowly at the table. David hovers. She mops her brow. David sits beside her.)

BEATRICE

(continuing)

Look at me. Even in winter, I'm svitzing all over.

(biting into a cookie)

As a gardener, I'm no Martha Stewart. Baking cookies I know how to do.

(watching as David eats and drinks)

We haven't talked about it in a long time. You know you did the right thing with Buddy?

DAVID

I also betrayed my best friend. Doing the right thing doesn't necessarily make you feel good.

BEATRICE

You want to feel good, David, go to the movies, eat some cookies.

(beat)

So you came all this way on the spur of the moment. You're looking for advice, maybe?

DAVID

I'm looking for advice maybe.

(On the screen above: ...nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself...)

BEATRICE

You say the truth is complicated. This I know about. What can I tell you? Back in the fifties, you know, with McCarthy, the truth was complicated then, too. Most of the people -- the ones who weren't rat bastards who named names to help themselves -- they stood on the Fifth. Many, maybe most, had been members of the Party -- or attended some meetings years before, I don't know. But they took the Fifth, which was interesting, because the right not to testify against yourself wasn't exactly a right the Party believed in. But they didn't want to go to jail -- many did anyway -- and they didn't want to name names, which they would have had to do --

(waves her hand dismissively)

(On the screen above: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press...)

“The Trial of George Jacobs,” August 5, 1692 by Tompkins H. Matteson

BEATRICE

(continuing)

A few people, though -- your father defended some of them -- they stood on the First Amendment. They could believe whatever they wanted. It was their right. They faced jail, too, because there were laws -- they were unconstitutional --

(beat)

I don't mind those who took the Fifth. They had the right, and such moments when you face them...but secrets, David, they make you sick. They're not good for the soul. Hah! Listen to me. I'm talking about souls.

(beat)

Why don't you talk to your father?

DAVID

Mom, come on. We're polite to each other.

BEATRICE

Whose fault is that?

DAVID

What? It's my fault?

BEATRICE

You don't think you have some obligation to reach out to him?

DAVID

I don't understand this. According to Sara it was my obligation to reach out to my daughter. You say it's my obligation to reach out to my father. There's obviously something about family relations I'm not getting here.

BEATRICE

You were given a lot, David.

(pointing to his head)

I mean up there, too. Maybe more is expected of you.

(beat)

You know, your father isn't well.

(­at David's look of alarm)

No, nothing new. No diagnosis. His heart's been bad for years. You know that. Still, I get these feelings.

(beat)

I've never told you this because your father never spoke about it with anyone. But maybe now... Before the war, your father and I, we also thought we were communists. Our parents came over and worked hard, for pennies. We thought we knew the class struggle. We thought we were atheists. Me? Still? Who knows?

(beat)

Those pictures you've seen -- American soldiers at the gates of the concentration camps, when they were liberated -- those ghosts that passed for human beings.... Your father was one of those soldiers.

DAVID

I didn't know that.

BEATRICE

That pocket watch he carries, all these years -- he says he got it at a flea market? It belonged to your great uncle Reuben. He gave it to your grandfather the day your grandfather left for America. At Buchenwald, your father met a survivor who knew Reuben. Reuben died there.

DAVID

I never knew any of this.

BEATRICE

Your father didn't want you to know.

(beat, reflective)

You think you know what atheism is. You don't know what atheism is until you see things like he saw. I don't know if you remember how remote your father was when you were very little.

DAVID

Of course I do.

BEATRICE

He was in such despair. For years I didn't recognize the man I married.

(pause)

And then he chose. He chose to believe. It was that or die, I think, I really do. To believe -- to believe was to spit in the face of it. Do you understand? To spit in the face of the darkness. If he could believe after all -- If he could believe, it hadn't won. It couldn't win.

(rising)

And if he could get you to believe, then he could save you, too. If he was so unyielding in his demands on you, David, it was because he thought he knew things you didn't know. Maybe he was wrong. But that choice saved him, and it made him all he can ever be until the day he --

(beat)

Make peace with him. You need to forgive each other.

Interior “Void” of Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, Berlin. (Image from Studio Daniel Libeskind)

DAVID

(rising to face her)

Oh, mom. That’s so easy to say. But then tomorrow there are still the differences between us, the conflicts.

BEATRICE

So forgive him for today. And he’ll forgive you. And tomorrow you’ll deal with tomorrow. Maybe you’ll forgive him again.

(beat)

Make peace with your father, David. Daven with him.

DAVID

And the fact that I’d be praying to a God I don’t believe in?

BEATRICE

The words are ritual. An incantation. Who knows? Maybe God will appear. Unless you’d send him packing on principle.

DAVID

I might.

(pause)

No. I can't. I know you think it would be a lovely gesture. But it can't be on those terms. I forgive him, mom -- if there's anything to forgive. But I know a little something about this now. His forgiveness, if it's based on a hollow gesture -- a lie -- would be meaningless, for both of us. I accept him for who he is. He has to accept me for who I am. There's no other way.

BEATRICE

I wonder, then...if the two of you will ever really reconcile.

(Beatrice sadly picks up the plate of cookies and the pitcher of milk. David watches her. She walks slowly toward the house, off stage, lights slowly dimming on all but David.)

DAVID

Maybe everything can't be reconciled — if that's what it means.

(beat)

There's no point in lying about who you are.

AJA

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⇐ Part 9, “Ghosts in every attic”

⇒ Part 11, “The risk, my brother — the risk is just a part of life”

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Homo Vitruvius and American Samizdat serve as homes for my weekly creative writing and intellectual exploration. HV persists as my original and primary Substack in these pursuits; AS arose in resistance to Trumpism and is dedicated to its defeat. From memoir and poetry to fiction and drama, mostly in HV, to history and political philosophy, predominantly in AS, you will find it here, integrated across the two stacks through a creative and intellectual sensibility I hope you will find invigorating. The stacks may be subscribed jointly or singly in Manage Subscription.

Poet. Storyteller. Dramatist. Essayist. Artificer.

ajayadler.com